Mineralogy

Research at the Mineralogical-Geological Museum in the field of mineralogy has its origin in the great achievements of Victor Moritz Goldschmidt (1888-1947) and Waldemar Christofer Brøgger (1851–1940). The research of NHM’s mineralogy team is strongly based on the museum’s collections and fieldwork worldwide, but with an emphasis on Norwegian localities. The overall aim of our research is the understanding of minerals including their properties, formation, and occurrence. Our research principally follows two concepts: First, the descriptive mineralogy, the description of the internal structure of minerals and their physical and chemical properties, and, second, the genetic mineralogy explaining the diversity of minerals on Earth and how and why they are formed. Applied mineralogy is also an important part of our research explaining which and how minerals are used for manufacturing items used in our daily life. Recent research activities of the mineralogy group deal with mechanism of element mobility in various geological settings including the following research topics: